I imagined that it was there.

"Are you asleep?" she asked presently, after I had lain perfectly quiet
for many minutes. Her voice was so low that it entered my ear as the
faintest breath.

"Hardly," I answered. "To tell the truth, I expect never to sleep
again--I suppose you understand me. I can't say why--I feel it."

Desiree nodded.

"Do you remember, Paul, what I said that evening on the mountain?"
Then--I suppose my face must have betrayed my thought--she added
quickly: "Oh, I didn't mean that--other thing. I said this mountain
would be my grave, do you remember? You see, I knew."

I started to reply, but was interrupted by Harry, calling to ask where
we were. I answered, and soon he had joined us and seated himself
beside Desiree on the ground.

"I found nothing," was all he said, wearily, and he lay back and closed
his eyes, resting his head on his hands.

The minutes passed slowly. Desiree and I talked in low tones; Harry
moved about uneasily on his hard bed, saying nothing. Finally, despite
Desiree's energetic protests, I rose to my knees and insisted that she
rest herself. We seemed none of us to be scarcely aware of what we
were doing; our movements had a curious purposelessness about them that
gave the thing an appearance of unreality--I know not what; it comes to
my memory as some indistinct and haunting nightmare.

Suddenly, as I sat gazing dully into the semidarkness of the cavern, I
saw that which drove the apathy from my brain with a sudden shock, at
the same time paralyzing my senses. I strained my eyes ahead; there
could be no doubt of it; that black, slowly moving line was a band of
Incas creeping toward us silently, on their knees, through the
darkness. Glancing to either side I saw that the line extended
completely around us, to the right and left.

The sight seemed to paralyze me. I tried to call to Harry--no sound
came from my eager lips. I tried to put out my hand to rouse him and
to pick up my spear; my arms remained motionless at my side.

Desiree lay close beside me; I could not even turn my head to see if
she, too, saw, but kept my eyes, as though fascinated, on that silent
black line approaching through the darkness.

"Will they leap now--now--now?" I asked myself with every beat of my
pulse.

It could not be much longer--they were now so close that each black,
tense form was in clear outline not fifty feet away.

Chapter XXIII.

WE ARE TWO.

Whether I